London's networking queen: Julia Hobsbawm

London’s networking queen: Julia Hobsbawm

Rosamund Urwin

9 Jan 2012

Before I meet Julia Hobsbawm, she sends me her CV. And a list of famous speakers and members of the think-club she runs, Editorial Intelligence. And she starts following me on Twitter. When the interview begins, I realise she has researched me. Extensively.

I should, perhaps, have expected this. For Hobsbawm is London’s networking queen, now given official recognition with a visiting professorship at Cass Business School – the world’s first “Professor Schmooze”. The role is “more proselytising than teaching,” she says, but when you read her bursting CV, it is surprising she can fit even that in. The 47-year-old is most famous for founding the apparently-not-oxymoronic “ethical PR” agency Hobsbawm Macaulay Communications with Sarah Brown, who once declared: “Julia goes out to lunch with people so I don’t have to.” Clients included the British Council and the New Statesman, but the firm went into liquidation in 2005. Hobsbawm had also worked in publishing and now runs Editorial Intelligence, which she launched the same year. She is currently writing her fifth book (about networking, of course) and is vice-president of the Hay Festival.

Then there’s the charitable work, as a patron of the Facial Surgery Research Foundation and the Zoe Sarojini Trust, a charity educating girls in South Africa. Oh, and she is mother to three children (Wolfie, Anoushka and Roman, aged six to 13) and stepmother to 19-year-old Max and 22-year-old Rachael.

We have met at Electric House, a private members’ club on Portobello Road, which seems an appropriate Hobsbawm hang-out, filled with influential-looking types in expensive shoes. She is polished, turning up (early) in a stripy autumnal dress, gold jewellery and high heels. It would all be a little intimidating, a little too Nicola Horlick, except that Hobsbawm is warm and sharp-witted, insisting she is no superwoman: “I juggle and I’m imperfect. Having a teenager who’s inclined to call me a moron if he’s remotely displeased is a very good check.”

Having a house husband, Alaric, helps too, as does coffee: she’s on her second double espresso of the day, and it’s only 11am. She devours books on productivity and once had coaching (over the phone to save precious minutes) about “time-stretching”.

The indefatigability may also be in the genes: she is the daughter of the Marxist historian Eric who, at 94, has just finished his 31st book. Hobsbawm may not share her father’s love for academia (she has no degree and admits “I am definitely of the school of life; I’m probably the only person who has two Latin O-levels because my A-level was graded an O”), but she believes they are both motivated by curiosity: him for ideas, her for people.

Her own contacts book is bulging: speakers at Editorial Intelligence have ranged from historian Simon Schama and Financial Times editor Lionel Barber to Kids Company director Camila Batmanghelidjh and psychoanalyst Susie Orbach. As well as many friends in PR and media, she is very close to London super-couple Helena Kennedy QC and facial surgeon Iain Hutchison, who is also her cousin.

She is keen to recast networking, though: it is not about “working a room” (too “vulgar”) but about interest in others: “You should find the person you are standing next to and really try to get the measure of them and let them get the measure of you.” But isn’t schmoozing simply too brazen for us blushing Brits? “Oh, absolutely,” Hobsbawm admits. “But London can, should and will be the networking capital. There’s nothing to stop us from being the hub, the place where people meet and exchange ideas as a gateway to other places in the world.”

A cynic might think that she would say this, as Editorial Intelligence is based in the capital, its “bijou” office in Somerset House. But Hobsbawm is passionate about the benefits of networking, believing it can help unemployed graduates, in particular.

“There’s a steady voice that says the unemployed 18-24s [are] lacking an ability to be inquisitive, confident and hold somebody’s gaze,” she explains. “The recession has thrown up a skills gap and I regard networking as a hard skill, not a soft, nice-to-have, fluffy thing.”

But is it not strange – in an age when so much networking occurs online – to be researching the benefits of the ancient art of face-to-face meetings? “Social networking is now so pervasive that it was inevitable that people would look into networks that aren’t bundles of cables too. It is really pleasing that its importance is being recognised by a business school – there’s very little research into the impact of human networks.”

Hobsbawm may extol the virtues of meeting in person, but she is an avid Twitter user too: “It is important, significant and here to stay. That’s because this incredible distillation [of knowledge] is very much part of the zeitgeist – cramming as much information into as little time as possible.”

This is what Editorial Intelligence is increasingly trying to do too: “This era is going to be defined as the age of information navigation: curated content is really important for people to survive the feeling of being overwhelmed. What we are trying to do is embed the idea of an intellectual connections and ideas club [in the same way] as people have gym membership: you keep it because you believe in what it is doing. And that’s what we find with our members – even in this climate, our numbers are going up.”

She thinks the business world is embracing networking and ways to cope with excess information as the emphasis shifts away from leadership: “In the middle of a huge number of businesses is a ‘marzipan’ layer of executives who get stuck – it’s the gummy layer underneath the icing. They are mid-career and information overload can paralyse them. What I am trying to do is release that marzipan layer, which will boost productivity.”

Editorial Intelligence was never supposed to become such a demanding business, though. When she had her third child, Wolfie, six years ago, she had settled on being a communications strategy consultant and “schoolgate mum”.

Shortly after he was born, though, Hobsbawm recalls waking up one morning and thinking: “This just won’t do. I have this idea for a networking business which aggregates information and I know I am the person to do it.”

She launched it from home, with an office arranged around bunk beds in one of her children’s bedrooms. Wolfie soon forced a rethink, though: “When he was about five months old, he inched over on his bottom and nibbled the corners of every single envelope in the mailing pile.”

At that point, she decided to start a new business in full: “The timing was appalling and I kinda nearly killed myself with the pressure but if you really want to do something, you will.”

The “kinda nearly killing myself” ended in a bout of pneumonia five years ago which forced her to re-evaluate her work/life balance and spawned a book on the subject. “The biggest mistake you can make as a working mother is to think you are invincible,” she says.

Hobsbawm now makes more time for her children and husband and imposes “techno Shabbat” on a Friday night where the BlackBerry is switched off for 24 hours.

There are more trivial blips too. A few days before we meet, her 13-year-old son, Roman, hijacked her Twitter account on Christmas Day after “two sips of champagne”. He wrote “Merry christmas! I am sooooo smely and hate all you saddos on twitter! GEEEEET AAAA LLIIIIIFFEEEEEEEEERR” and “I’m such a twitter bangout”.

She cringes as she recalls it: “I went cold with horror.” It seems even if you are one of the most-organised, best-connected women in London, a teenager can still cause havoc.

Lessons in networking

1. Choose face-to-face over Facebook. The best connections are made in person.

2. Eye contact matters. It is the easiest way to find out if you trust and like someone. Never look over their shoulder at someone else.

3. Ask “How are you?” not “Who
are you?” We put far too much store on job titles and far too little on whether people like the same things as you do.

4. Be curious. The faster you can connect with someone, the sooner you will exchange valuable information with each other.

5. Network for the long term. You don’t have to “succeed” at networking, you just have to see where it leads.

6. De-clutter your contacts book. Forget being competitive with how many “friends” or “followers” you have. Only connect with people who interest, amuse, or inspire you.

7. Most networking should never take place in a party or conference environment. Rethink your definition of networking to include much smaller, curated gatherings where the exchange of ideas is paramount.

8. And for the shy … Shyness in networking is actually the norm. The antidote is to make eye contact and wait for someone to break the cycle and begin a conversation.